high school students

At McClymonds High School, from left to right: Romanalyn Inocencio, Breannie Robinson and Pamela Tapia. Photo by Alison Yin.

I mentioned a few months ago that I was working with photojournalist Alison Yin on a project about childhood asthma and its disproportionate impact on families in Oakland and elsewhere along the I-880/80 corridor. It’s a project for The California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowships, a program of USC’s Annenberg School of Journalism.

Now we have some help! I’m happy to announce the names of our three reporting interns, who will be producing stories and videos for the project with a grant from Annenberg: Pamela Tapia, a recent McClymonds graduate; and Pearl Joy Balagot and Henry Jean-Philippe, both from Fremont High.

Their adviser for the project will be Lisa Shafer (below, left), and I’m sure they’ll get some support from Nadine Joseph, a writing coach who advises the McClymonds journalism club. Pearl and Henry are standing in the back, with their cameras, in the picture.

Photo by Alison Yin

We met with them yesterday, along with some other McClymonds and Fremont high school students, who shared their stories about asthma and helped us brainstorm ways to reach students and families with the finished projects.

My favorite piece of advice came from Breannie Robinson, a no-nonsense Mack student-athlete (basketball star), who had asthma as a child.

After listening to us go back and forth about Twitter, Facebook, video screenings, newsletters and other ideas, she jumped in with this tip: ”Make it interesting.”

Well said!

If anyone has an idea for the interns — someone you know with a story to tell about asthma, or an issue you feel needs attention — please share it, either on the blog or to me, at kmurphy@bayareanewsgroup.com.

The program, announced in June, offers temporary deportation relief for those brought to the country illegally when they were children as long as they were under 31 on June 15 and have met certain educational (and other) requirements.

According to the Migration Policy Institute, 20 percent of young immigrants who met the other criteria won’t be able to benefit because they don’t have a high school diploma or GED and they’re not in school. I wonder if that figure is even higher in Oakland, where the four-year high school graduation rate is only 59 percent.